Gorgeous Greeks: Seductive Secrets

The first time they’d kissed. He’d been determined to kiss her, and she’d been skittish and nervous, flitting around her apartment, plying him with cupcakes. He’d eaten them, laughing as he did so, because they’d both known what was better than any dessert. That first kiss had been so, so sweet; it had been innocence and longing entangled together.

The first time they’d made love, one Saturday afternoon, the room mellow with sunlight. He’d traced circles on her skin with his fingers and lips and she’d laughed and told him she was ticklish.

Ticklish! He’d been a little offended, because he’d been so breathless and aching with desire, and he’d set upon a course of making her want him as much as he wanted her.

He’d succeeded admirably.

But it hadn’t been just sex. She’d opened up such a life to him, a sweet, simple life, and he’d let himself fall, had willingly entered into the dream she shared of a bakery and bookshop, let it all wash over him and pull him into a fantasy world that he’d never thought to inhabit because it was all so far from his life, from his father. With Eleanor he hadn’t been a useless failure. He hadn’t had his shortcomings tossed back at him again and again.

With Eleanor he’d just been himself. And yet he’d still run. Jace shook his head, the memories both hurting and humiliating him.

Even if you knew the baby was yours, Jace, would you have stayed?

The question, and the fact that Eleanor could ask it, damned him. And even now Jace was shamed by her lack of trust in him. Yet why should she trust him? He hadn’t proved himself or his trustworthiness in any way. He’d only failed.

And he was afraid of failing again—failing Eleanor, failing himself—by opening this Pandora’s box of possibility between them.

Staying away would have been easier. Safer. He just wished he’d had the strength to do it.

Suppressing a shiver as a chilly wind blew off the water, Jace slung his damp shirt around his neck and headed back to the villa, now no more than a darkened hulk under the sky. Inside all was quiet, the only sound the whisper of the waves. Jace peeled off his damp clothes and fell into bed naked, clenching his eyes shut as if he could keep the doubts from assailing him, the memories from claiming him.

Yet as he finally drifted off to sleep he could see Eleanor as she once was, relaxed and laughing as she held out a chocolate cupcake, and he heard her laughter as she tempted him to taste it.

He woke up craving chocolate. Craving Eleanor.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.